--On Wednesday, 14 July, 2004 12:13 -0700 Randy Presuhn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hi - > >> From: "Daniel Senie" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> Sent: Wednesday, July 14, 2004 11:30 AM >> Subject: Re: Names of standards-track RFCs > ... >> Now a different viewpoint. When looking at drafts as they go >> by on id-announce, nothing gets me more annoyed than reading >> the title and summary, and having no idea what the document >> is about. The audience for documents spreads beyond those >> working in the very specific area. New acronyms pop up often, >> and frequently the same acronym means different things to >> different folks in this industry. Spelling out is essential. > ... > > Agreed. Spelling things out becomes even more important as > documents age. Consider, for example, "IMP" in some of the > older RFCs. I suspect many IETF participants have never seen > or used one, yet this was probably considered "well known" when > those RFCs were written. Randy, that is actually a pretty good example of the problem. If I tell you that something is an "Interface Message Processor", and you have no history (direct or indirect) that goes back to the ARPANET, what are you likely to think it is? Something to do with email or instant messaging, perhaps? Certainly neither you, nor any search engine you are likely to be able to apply, are likely to assume that it is a box of the same general class of things as "router". I think the solution to the problem that you and Dan raise --which I acknowledge is legitimate-- is to insist that abstracts really reflect purpose and context. That is in the current rules too -- if you, or Dan, can't figure out what something is about from the abstract, than the process has slipped up somewhere. Personally, I think that should be a legitimate Last Call issue -- I don't know if the IESG would be very happy about Last Call response notes that say "I couldn't figure out what this was about from reading the abstract, so didn't review the document, but the abstract ought to be fixed and then the Last Call restarted", but it would, IMO, focus the issue correctly. Certainly, a "good abstracts" rule is harder to enforce automatically or objectively than "spell out abbreviations", but trying to put the burden of explaining the relevancy or lack thereof to someone else's work on a document's title, with our without abbreviations, is just not feasible, at least IMO. best, john _______________________________________________ Ietf mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf